The present invention relates to methods, systems, and articles for notifying of an online status of a computer user.
At the present time, instant messaging Internet products, such as those made available by America Online and Microsoft Corporation, notify subscribers already online as to when members of their buddy list have arrived online. A shortcoming of these products is that off-line subscribers are not notified of the online status of other members.
An example of a system for immediate pop-up messaging across the Internet is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,943,478 to Aggarwal et al. This patent also discloses a method and infrastructure for continuously tracking and reporting the online status of users.